Without exception
It makes my heart sad. Every education professional who came knocking on my door in the last weeks of the school year could no longer manage the sprint to the finish line. One by one, they went on sick leave. Without exception. It made no difference whether they were teachers, care coordinators, head teachers or management. The scenario was always the same. Their energy was gone. The spark had gone out. Those few weeks were impossible to bridge. Their resilience had dropped to zero. Their motivation had flown out of the window. The pain was too great. The powerlessness unbearable. Self-care a challenge. The frustrations with the system overwhelming. Two months of holiday offered no perspective. ‘I can’t go on. I don’t know if I can ever go back’ was the general feeling.
It makes me sigh. I think of the struggle, seemingly without end in sight, that these people feel. I think of the pupils who deserve lively, motivated and enthusiastic teachers. I think of how these education professionals once chose this profession out of love. I think of the educational constellation we did about two years ago, in which teachers leaving the profession was a fact, and the teachers who stayed felt extra pressure and eventually ended up in the same place as their colleagues. This cannot possibly be the intention.
I cannot stand by and watch, nor can I accept it. There are many programmes for pupils with all kinds of difficulties. But what about programmes and coaching for teachers and head teachers who need a little support? Surely we cannot simply let so many good people in education wither away?
The drumming of the taiko
I know the frustrations. I too have experienced an excess of complicated events and stimuli upsetting my balance. My emotions resembled a resentful, stormy ocean, my legs felt more like matchsticks that could snap at any moment, my body was permanently in a state of alarm, alert to whatever might happen next, and my heart drummed like a taiko, a Japanese drumming technique that races through your whole body. The crash close at hand…
Fortunately, I know the symptoms from my own experience. Nothing in these stories surprises me. Fortunately, I have learnt time and again how to rise above difficult situations and draw strength from them. What better thing can I do than share my experiences? The growth I have made my own in the educational landscape in which I worked for many years does not belong to me alone. That growth is meant to be shared with everyone who is looking for well-being and who wants to work at school with enough energy, or better still, with a lively energy. It makes me happy when I see the downward movement in the teachers and head teachers I support turn into an upward, transforming awareness.
Do you recognise yourself in these symptoms? Then know that you are not alone. Know that the tide can be turned. Know that your growth and transformation also have an effect on ‘the system’. Know that pupils look forward to teachers full of zest for life and that staff have confidence in a revitalised head teacher.
From one door to the next
The symptoms are actually bearers of good news. They bang on the door of your awareness so that you will open it. They ask you to close the previous door. You have outgrown the old patterns. They no longer work. Your symptoms push you to face this and leave it behind. It is precisely because we hold on to what no longer works that we experience pain and resistance. The step from one door to the next is the hardest. It feels like no man’s land. You lose all sense of direction. It is the moment you want to give up or fall ill. The situation changes when you open the new door. The landscape beyond the open door looks brighter. New possibilities reveal themselves. You become curious. About yourself, too. Your zest for life begins to rise again. You can smile at what you did not know back then, behind that previous door. You no longer want to go back. Only forward.
Your advanced self
Are you someone who does not want to go under, but wants to learn new things that make you feel better? Every day we ask our pupils to learn new things. What about you? Are you willing to get to know the awareness that lies dormant within you and that wants to be awakened to commit itself to an education that opens hearts and awareness? Are you ready to meet your advanced self and connect with her? Can you not wait to blossom, to experience love and awareness and to share all of this in your work as a teacher? Are you aware that every new door erases a little more of your ignorance, replacing it with something we call connection, strength, source, essence or aware-ness?
THE essential summer class for teachers
Would you, just as I have learnt to do, like to bring your lessons to life from your presence? Would you like to be ready for the new school year from a place of relaxation? Would you like to master the basics of teaching with strength and love and still have energy left for your family in the evening? Do you, like many others, realise that schools need a new inspiration? We can no longer ignore the essence; we need to reconnect with it. Your essence is to be found within you. Nowhere else. Would you like to bring that essence to school? Would you like to inspire your pupils to live and learn from their essence? What would that mean? What kind of education would you then create? Do you dare to open that door? Would you like to learn all of this from me?
You are welcome in my summer class for teachers on 19 and 20 August. With Teaching by being we recharge for two beautiful days in a green and mindful setting. From your restored connection with your essence, you look forward to 1 September with confidence.
A school year with less pressure
For those who want to go ever further in their connection with their own essence, the essence of their pupils and the essence of education, there is more. Why would you keep on performing under pressure? What is the point? None at all!
Would you like to develop yourself further? Learn to open your eyes and ears? Activate your senses? Use your broader awareness so that schools themselves can also open new doors with beautiful educational landscapes behind them? What would it be like if you consciously brought love, heart connection and soul awareness into the school? You surely know that you would then become irresistible. What if you were to make systemic insights your own? They make you see the school and everyone involved in it as you have never seen them before. As if you get to see the scenario behind the scenario. Illuminating and, above all, stress-relieving.
You are welcome on the programme A systemic view beyond stress at school that starts in September, and of course at the Educational constellations on 1 December. For more intimate personal guidance, you can turn to Pedagogical coaching.
Renewal for head teachers
Teachers need head teachers with vision and charisma who set the direction and inspire their staff. Teachers are not the only ones who place their wishes on the head teacher’s desk. Head teachers are pulled in every direction and their diaries are packed with deadlines. Self-care for head teachers is not included in their working hours. So how do you keep the connection with the essence of your inner leader when you do not even have time to drink your coffee while it is hot?
What I know from my own experience as a head teacher and from my contact with other head teachers is that they all too often turn their heart to stone in order to fulfil their task. What they need is to feel that their heart is beating. That their heart is the centre of love and that schools and their pupils need heartfelt lessons and heartfelt approaches. The heart? Love? I do not mean this superficially, but as an essential part of the curriculum and of how teachers position themselves. If the leader’s office were the beating heart of the school, what would our education look like?
Every school leader is welcome on the transformation programme From Self-management to school management. Connecting, finding rest, getting moving,… together with others who understand what your job involves.
You can come to me for systemic educational advice, coaching, educational constellations and programmes.
On 11 and 12 October you can discover what an Education council for head teachers involves.
The changing awareness is making itself known.
When a new electronic gadget comes onto the market, or anything else our heart desires, we are quick off the mark to get our hands on one. We want to keep up.
Are you becoming aware that our consciousness, both collective and individual, is changing? Do you notice that we are being invited to live what is essential? Do you already know the manual for the essence? Do you know that it is very simple?
Are you making the choice now to explore your aware-being and spread it in the school? Do you want to be part of it before others get ahead of you? Then I would love to see you on one of the training courses, and I will gladly share everything I know about this, so that next school year will be one to remember, in a positive way.
With zestful greetings
Hilde Van Bulck
Speaker, writer, awareness coach, systemic constellation facilitator and adviser
(with 26 years of experience in education)
Author of De eigenwijze kikker
Facilitator for education at Organisation Of The Future
AMI Activating, Motivating, Inspiring
